Ramsay, William Mitchell: Impressions of Turkey during twelve years' wanderings (London, 1897)

CHAPTER IV.

AN EXCURSION IN PHRYGIA : II. THE WAY HOME.

IX. The distance to Afiom-Kara-Hissar (Opium-
Black-Castle) from Duwer is called ten hours ; but
with our faces turned to the south and towards
home we did it without feeling any temptation to
halt, for the same cold, bleak, showery weather
continued in a way I have never known here in
July. I knew every foot of the way and of the
country immediately around, while the unpropitious
weather did not tempt us to search for fresh woods
and pasture new.

Afiom-Kara-Hissar, with its citadel high on a
vast, almost inaccessible column of rock rising
straight out of the plain to a height of 700 feet,1 was
a point of great importance in the long wars be-
tween Christian and Mohammedan. In 668, the
Arabs besieged Constantinople, only forty-six years
after Mohammed fled, helpless and almost alone,
from Mecca. But in 740, in front of the walls of
Akroenos, a Byzantine army won the first victory
over the Crescent, the victor}- that cheered on the
Romaic soldiers to the long wars of the following
1 Sou Sir C. Wilson ; 626 Monsieur G. Radet.

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